Instagram launched this Wednesday (16), in the United States, the Family Center, an area where parents and guardians will be able to have access to monitoring tools such as time spent, control of followers and access to reports. You will not be able to view private messages. The goal is a balance between the profile’s visibility by parents and the privacy of teenagers. There is a forecast of expansion to other countries in the coming months.
Adam Mosseri, president of Instagram, says it’s “a long-term commitment to developing intuitive supervision tools, based on guidance from experts, teens and parents. Parents and guardians know what’s best for their teens. In December, I committed to to develop new parental supervision tools that allow them to be more involved in their children’s experience”.
Instagram’s announcement comes on the heels of one of the biggest crises in its more than 11 years of existence, when a former employee leaked internal documents that said the company knew the app is potentially harmful to the mental health of a former employee. teenage girls, according to a report published by the Wall Street Journal.
Tech giant Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has been under public scrutiny since former employee Frances Haugen handed over internal company documents to the press, which became known as the Facebook Papers.
According to one of the reports based on these documents, the social network would have been told that Instagram worsened the image issues of 1 in 3 girls. Teenagers also blamed Instagram for anxiety and depression issues.
When questioned, Meta says it “does this kind of research to ask tough questions” and find out how to “improve people’s experience.” “So, research like this serves to inform, for example, the work we do related to issues like negative body image.”
After these criticisms, Instagram launched in February this year an anti-addiction tool that aims to help users who believe they are abusing the social network: Make a Pause.
The new service is available in the “Your activity” tab in the app’s side menu. User can schedule reminders to take breaks every 10, 20 or 30 minutes.
Take a Pause would have been developed as part of a commitment to “positive and meaningful” experiences on the social network. “We continue to explore new ideas, such as encouraging people to look at other topics if they’ve been browsing the same topic for a while,” said a spokesperson for Meta.
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